“I am Arthur, your King. King of all the Britains.”
“Well I didn’t vote for ya.”
We didn’t see any watery tarts handing out scimitars, however.
Ahhh, Britain. Land of where I can read the signs. Land of proper English. Although they spell “curb” here “kerb.” Ah well, it’s their language, what can I say.
We wanted to head out at noon, so of course we went out at 10:00, unable to stay put. First stop was something “likely distant cousin” Allen had informed me about, and it happened to be directly next to Solent Sky, an air museum.
Yeah, that’s MY road
The museum looked small at first glance, but was loaded with planes and other displays. There was an enormous amount of information about the Spitfires, and I had no clue as to what a long evolution it was.
Spitfire
Engines, radios and uniforms were on display also, but the highlight was the massive double decker Beachcomber.
Big boy
This was used as a gunner ship in WWII, with something like 13 gunners on board, looking for German ships in the fjords. The Nazis had a fear of these, naming them the Prickly Porcupine. They were converted to passenger service after the war, as this one was, and the seating was fairly luxurious for leg room. I sat in the cockpit which was pretty nifty. They had a Hornet cockpit in the museum, too, which was downright claustrophobic.
After that we wandered towards High Street, where there were many shops and such. We passed the ruins of a 1302 church, damaged during the war.
A very old church
By now, Neesh’s legs were bugging her and it was just noon. “Hungry?” “No.” “Thirsty?” “Yes.” And so, our first pub and I had my very first proper British beer, hand pumped. A Burton’s Bitters I believe, and it was delicious. Drink and food prices are insanely low here. About $5.50 for a pint and a Bacardi and diet. I could like this place. A lot.
We wandered up High Street, which turns into Above Bar, and found a couple of Pound Stores – 99 pence or less, so we crammed a bunch of munchies into the backpack and should be good to Boston now. Time to eat and we ended up at the curiously named Slug and Lettuce. More beer, a gigantic plate of food, and people watching from the outside seating on what turned out to be a mostly sunny and warm day.
We walked by Solent University.
One of the university buildings
We were looking for Bedford Place, but took a wrong turn onto London Road, and I made things worse wandering through some alleys trying to get over there, so we backtracked and came to the Red Lion Pub, a warmly decorated small pub where a mellow Pit Bull by and large held down the carpet or the furniture. My kind of place. I accidentally ordered a cider, and then had more beer. More wonderful beer. Damn, it’s good here.
One of the customers, whom I called Mr. Cantankerous, gruffly told me like I was moron that instead of looking for a taxi, they could call one. I thanked him and got a dismissive grimace instead. Whatever. The owners were sweethearts and gladly called the taxi, which showed up mere moments later. OK, that was crazy easy.
Like anything, this turned out to be an adventure, too, as we ended up at the west docks, instead of the east ones, far away from the ship. We finally made it to the ship, and to my horror, my wallet was gone. Ohhhhhhhhh, crap. Money, cards, ID, gone, gone, gone. I searched my pockets, I searched the seat, I looked and nothing. OK, back to the Red Lion and as we went out the gate I saw it on the floor. Phew! Turn around again. What a messy cab ride.
We were beat again from another long day of walking so we watched a movie, which I fell asleep in the middle of only to see the last half hour, and another early night. Sleep is good.
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